Australasian taxonomy and systematics

The following fragment was pieced together from notes written by Jakob Rindler and only recently discovered in a shed at the Liverpool Botanic Garden. It is thought the notes were acquired, together with many other documents and specimens from the Linneaus estate, by Sir James Smith in 1783.

Although not an "apostle" student of Linneaus, Rindler was a summertime house-guest at the Linneaus farm at Hammarby, now a suburb of Uppsala. In the early 1760s a botanic garden was planted at Hammarby, and in several letters from Linneaus, Rindler is mentioned as a young and enthusiastic botanist who was of great help in tending the Hammarby plantings.

Judging from internal evidence, the meeting reported by Rindler probably took place in 1764 or 1765. It is curious that Linneaus never mentioned the interview with Sir Edward Ackronyme in later correspondence.

I have taken the liberty of translating Rindler's notes into reasonably modern English.

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The master was visited today by an English gentleman, Sir Edward Ackronyme, who carried letters of introduction from Earl Macclesfield [Royal Society of London] and Philip Miller [Chelsea Physic Garden].

The gentleman appeared to be very intelligent and spoke both Swedish and Latin. He praised the master's many contributions to knowledge. He said the master was a scientific colossus of the age and respected by all who knew the master's work. He said famam extendere factis [through our deeds we extend our fame] on the master's coat-of-arms was an inspiration to all natural philosophers.

The gentleman said he had read the second edition of the master's Species Plantarum, and had observed that it was supplemented with corrections to the text and with additional notes. The gentleman had a proposal to make in connection with this.

He proceeded to describe correctly and in interesting detail how Species Plantarum had been written and published, which greatly surprised the master. The gentleman said that his proposal did not, however, concern the production of scholarly books, but instead the use and diffusion of the knowledge in the books.

The gentleman explained that he and others had invented a method for reproducing the master's descriptions, using a large number of scribes and a new means of printing which was very swift and not expensive. The words of the master concerning individual species would be copied out by the scribes and printed in large numbers as separata.

The separata might then be sold more widely than the Species Plantarum. The gentleman gave an example, in which a philosopher in Virginia could acquire the descriptions of plants and animals native to Virginia. The two volumes of Species Plantarum contained many descriptions of plants and animals which were not found in Virginia and might not be of interest to philosophers there. The separata pertaining to Virginia, or to any other place, could be gathered up and placed in a pouch.

The gentleman said that if a purchaser was only interested in Pisces in the master's Systema Naturae, then the separata for Pisces could be gathered together for the purchaser.

The master observed that this was very clever. At this point the gentleman asked the master if the master could see value in this method of diffusion of knowledge. The master replied that it indeed had value.

The gentleman was pleased to hear this, and said that he had also received encouraging replies to this question from other philosophers. The gentleman had spoken directly to Dr Scopoli in Idrija and to other philosophers who had published works of natural history. Each had agreed that there was much merit in the idea of spreading more widely their descriptions and classifications.

The gentleman said that if the master wished to make a correction or addition to any one of his species, that information could be sent to the scribes, who would make the correction or addition in a new separatum. The new separatum would be sent to all those who had purchased an uncorrected version. The gentleman said this was possible because the cost of printing separata by the new method was hardly of consequence, and the number printed could be one or a thousand.

The gentleman produced a small sheet of paper and gave it to the master. On the paper had been printed a description from Species Plantarum of a species, and beneath the description was the name of the master. Beneath the name was an addition the master had made to the description, and this too was subscribed with the name of the master. At the bottom of the paper was a date, which the gentleman said was the date on which the separatum had been printed.

The master again praised the cleverness of the idea of separata. He begged leave to ask questions, and the gentleman agreed.

The master asked first whether there would be a cost to himself in the production of separata. The gentleman said there would be no cost to the master or to other philosophers. The work of the scribes and the printing of separata would have royal patronage. He was not presently permitted to name the royal courts from which the patronage would come.

The master expressed surprise to hear that more than one kingdom was offering to assist. The gentleman explained that the idea of diffusion of knowledge through separata was not his alone. He was one of a group of interested gentlemen distributed throughout Europe. Each member of the group made a particular contribution. His own contribution related to printing, regarding which he could modestly admit to having acquired a degree of expertise.

The group of gentlemen met on occasions in various European cities. Their next meeting would take place in Paris. They would consider the question of whether separata should be printed only in Latin, or also in various modern languages, and if the latter, whether one separatum should be printed in more than one language. The gentleman said there were arguments for and arguments against, and the question might have to be resolved at a later meeting in another city.

Now the master asked, whether the patronage enjoyed by the gentlemen could be extended to natural philosophers and their students. The gentleman apologised because he did not think it possible. The production and distribution of separata was a matter of diffusion of knowledge, not of the generation of knowledge. The gentleman said that he and the other gentlemen greatly appreciated the work done by the master and other natural philosophers. It was the humble role of the gentleman and his associates to spread that knowledge and to make it more useful.

At this the master became upset and spoke severely. He said he worked day and night on the investigation of a science that a thousand men will not be able to complete, to say nothing of the time he squandered every day on scientific correspondence, while the gentleman and his colleagues can constantly enjoy the amenities of life. The master said that separata may indeed be of value, but they add nothing at all to knowledge, and that the gaining of knowledge was his constant goal.

The gentleman said that he hoped nothing he had said had angered the master, and that he had one more question to ask. While the scribes were skilled and diligent, it occasionally happened that a copying error was made when producing the separata. The gentleman asked whether the master would be willing to examine drafts of separata before they were printed. He explained that he and his associates were not natural philosophers, and that natural philosophers would be the persons best able to locate and correct any errors.

This concluded the meeting with the gentleman. The master did not reply to the last question, but wished the gentleman a good day, and turned to me and said that there was work to be done in the garden.